We’re all looking for ways to shed fat, (hopefully you’re finding your weight loss plans are most accomplished with diet and exercise) but where does that actually fat go?

According to Andrew Brown from the University of New South Wales and Australian Physicist Ruben Meerman, “The correct answer is that most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide. It goes into thin air.”

To get reallll science-y about it, IFL Science explains it like this: “Excess carbs and proteins are converted into chemical compounds called triglycerides (which consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) and then stored in the lipid droplets of fat cells. To lose weight, you’re attempting to metabolize those triglycerides, and that means unlocking the carbon that’s stored in your fat cells.”

To summarize, losing 10kg (a little over 22 lbs) of fat breaks down like this:

So does this mean you can breathe yourself thin by inhaling and exhaling more? Nope. As we all know, inhaling and exhaling quickly can cause you to feel dizzy and nauseous. So maybe don’t try that exactly, but hey, here’s just one more reason for those deep inhales and exhales that we do at the beginning and end of each class!